Materials, building, surface treatment

Aluminium is used in virtually all areas of technology and everyday life. It has been used in the building and construction industry for about a hundred years. To improve corrosion resistance, surface finish and appearance, surfaces are subjected to a specific treatment. We offer technical advice in each of these three specialist fields. Photo credit top: PREFA / croce & wir Fotostudio

Materials

Aluminium is used in virtually all areas of technology and everyday life. It is very readily hot or cold worked, it can be welded and forged and is a good conductor of electricity and heat.

Whether it be as an engine block in a car, as the middle carriage of a high-speed train or in the construction of an aircraft, aluminium’s lightness helps save weight and energy in the transport sector. The building and construction industry demands a long useful life and the constructional and decorative design possibilities afforded by windows, façades and roofs made of aluminium. In the packaging industry aluminium protects foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals thanks to its barrier property. Its good conductivity means it is an interesting material for electrical engineering applications.

If you have specific questions relating to materials, please contact our specialists:

  • Werner Mader
  • Wolfgang Heidrich

Building and design

Aluminium has been used in the building and construction industry for about a hundred years. The range of applications is very diverse: it extends from roofing, guttering and fittings through to bridges, supporting structures, aluminium doors and windows, and complex glass-metal façade constructions.

The oxide skin that forms on aluminium affords the metal very good resistance to the elements. Surface treatment ─ anodising or coating ─ offers a wide range of possibilities for modifying the colour and structure of the aluminium surface in order to be able to satisfy highly decorative requirements.

If you have specific questions relating to building and design, please contact our specialist:

  • Werner Mader

Surface treatment and corrosion

Untreated aluminium is resistant to the elements. The surfaces of aluminium components are treated for decorative purposes. This is carried out either by anodising or colour coating.

Untreated aluminium is resistant to the elements. The surfaces of aluminium components are treated for decorative purposes. This is carried out either by anodising or colour coating.

With two-step anodisation, formation of the colourless anodised layer is followed by electrolytic colouring in a metallic salt solution. By using special electrolytes for specific alloys, one can use colour anodising to produce a wide range of colours. This means that with two-step anodisation and special electrolytes one can obtain colours ranging from whitish German silver to black, including light bronze to dark bronze and grey.

Organic coating of aluminium surfaces offers an almost unlimited range of colours. The natural oxide layer is dissolved away together with any components that impair adhesion and a conversion coating is then applied. When it comes to the actual colour coating, one differentiates between batch coating of individual parts, which can be carried out either as a powder or liquid coating, and coil coating in a continuous operation with different lacquer systems and structures.

If you have specific questions relating to surface treatment or corrosion, please contact our specialist:

  • Werner Mader

Aluminium encyclopaedia

Corrosion resistance

Thanks to a thin oxide layer that is always present, aluminium is protected against corrosive attack by oxygen, water and many chemicals. The protection can be improved in a controlled manner by alloying or surface treatment.

Oxide layer

Wafer-thin layer of aluminium oxides that forms on aluminium and its alloys in air and water and that has a corrosion-inhibiting effect.

Anodising

The formation of hard, corrosion resistant and adherent layers of aluminium oxides on aluminium components, for example for machine parts and façade cladding.

Contact

Werner Mader

Technology - Research - Standards  

T +49 211 4796-268

werner.mader@aluinfo.de

Building and architecture

Contemporary building and construction is more than just the utilitarian erection of structures: it involves functionality, aesthetics, economic efficiency and ecological compatibility. Photo credit: fotolia/gracchus

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Downloads

You can find further information on the use of aluminium in architecture and on surface treatment in our technical data sheets.

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